Success
failure many years ago, i remember driving home from Ann Arbor where i just purchased King Missile’s album Failure at Tower Records. the first song on the album gripped me, as i drove, but i quickly forgot it as the rest of the album played. over the years, it has become one of my favorite songs, of all time, because i cannot find flaw with it. the essential point it drives home so succinctly is that you are responsible for yourself. even if you believe in god, it’s not god’s fault you fucked up, and it’s not thanks to god that you are successful, either, if you happen to be. if you make a mistake, you will reap the consequences; if you do something right, you may be rewarded. or punished, life is funny like that. sometimes those who make mistakes are rewarded for their failures. so it goes, that is beyond your control. sometimes you are punished for behaving completely correctly. oh well. learn from your mistakes, if you made any, and move on. elusive success i don’t think that people understand how successful i have been able to be, while doing things exactly how i want to do them. i haven’t worked in almost 12 months, and it costs me around $2300/mo to ‘live’ here… so… to say i’m ‘poor’ or ‘unlucky’ or ‘too picky’ might be going too far… don’t you think? i figure if the point i am trying to make to people is that you can be successful doing things your own way, maybe i should reveal how successful i actually am. when i talk about ‘Plan B’, that’s me running off into the sunset, going off to have an epic road trip with $10,000 and seeing how far i can go. when i need to, i’ll settle in some bumfuck town, grab a job at a gas station, and enjoy myself. i think, honestly, i would be a greater benefit to humanity as a gas pump technician than a Server Reliability Engineer… unless the company that hires me is going to do something to benefit humanity. self pity i just went to look at the paperwork for my cobra coverage, and looked to make sure i still had time to mail in my cash. and then i caught myself thinking about how i was actually paying for insurance for a month i was completely healthy (so far, cross your fingers) but then i looked at it, from another angle. thankfully this company gives me a grace period of a full month, apparently, so i can pay after the month, and not in advance. which is great news if i run out of cash, but still need insurance and can find cash, if i need to. so i appreciate that. and then, i started thinking about how ridiculous the whole concept of paying insurance premiums that are this high ($489) just to ensure i could protect my meager savings in the event of a catastrophe. then i started thinking about how ridiculous it is that my room, which is 8’x13’ in a house i share with 6 other guys costs me $800. and then i started thinking about how, all in all, it costs me nearly $2000 a month, just to survive in this area, without affording many extravagances. and how unemployment only pays $1800/mo and i think i fucked up my last form by sending it in too late or something, and my unemployment might have auto-stopped. and how i really don’t care, but in hindsight, it’s so goddamn wasteful of the money. there are people that could live like royals, in california, with $1800, the fact that where i live consumes pretty much all of that is appalling. people drive in from all around, spending hours in traffic to get to jobs here that pay a little more than minimum wage (i’m being generous) to serve the entitled prats who make six figures a year. but i digress, another article… i promise. if i had known that i would be unemployed this long, and that companies here only want to hire developers as systems administrators and not people who believe in stability and reliability, i would have buggered off sooner, and used the money for more useful things, like car repairs or a nicer place to live that costs a fuck-ton less. i stopped feeling bad for myself when i remember that there are people who are worse off and not chasing their dreams. at least i have that. i came out here to find a job with a company i could be proud to tell people i worked for. i dreamed of being in silicon valley ever since reading about it in junior high. i carried that dream through high school and determined i wanted to be a linux admin. then college happened and just confused the hell out of me, and told me i wanted to have a reliable job that would pay good money, regardless of actual job satisfaction, because, this is the real world, kid. so the dream died inside me, and lay dormant until earlier this year, and by then it was too late. i was here, and it was not much of a dream. i’m surrounded by people who make all sorts of money and buy all sorts of things but still seem so unhappy with their lives. the people here just aren’t satisfied with what they have. they want to constantly consume more, and make more money to consume more, and have more than their peers. oh, you got a Maserati? that’s awfully cute, check out my Ferrari Enzo. don’t even get me started on the people who rent exotic cars to drive around and look flashier than they really are. rent one to take out on a track and drive and enjoy the vehicle for what it is, have fun with it. but driving around a block during dinner time just so people can see you propped up? how small is your self-confidence that you have to dress yourself up? i started this by pitying myself, but i find myself pitying you. i don’t want to pity you. i want to help you to help yourself. all you have to do is choose love and open your eyes. misery loves company, and i’m not going to join in. my eyes are OPEN. don’t pity me. i’m happy. i don’t have excess money, and my savings isn’t going to provide much longer. but i know when to fold ‘em, and the time is coming soon.